Web Shares Valuable in the Long Term: Fund Manager

The social media giant Facebook reached a deal with the web-based communication platform Skype to offer a video conference service to its users, while Skype is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft.

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“Broadly speaking, it’s going to be a positive,” Ben Rogoff, fund manager at Polar Capital Partners told CNBC on Thursday. “What they paid for Skype will put Microsoft in the forefront.”

“The main challenge for technology companies is to remain pertinent, and somewhat refresh the brand,” Rogoff said, “and not going down the route Nokia or Research In Motion have unfortunately found themselves on.”

Microsoft’s share value has barely changed over the last 10 years.

“There is a bunch of companies that look cheap but ultimately haven’t delivered for investors,” Rogoff added, before explaining that investors looking into tech shares should consider the long term return on investment.

“It’s a tricky 10 year time,” Rogoff said. “Going back 10 years is an awful timeframe to be looking at, because 10 years ago, 2001, we’re just coming in the back of a bubble and the last technology cycle.”

Rogoff is quite confident though about shares such as Google — the owner of the video platform YouTube and developer of the Android operating system.

“Android is one of the fastest growing operators… even faster than Apple ,” he said, and “the Youtube acquisition will eventually turn out to be a good one."

But in the end, social media will provide the next batch of technology leaders, according to Rogoff.

“If you look at the shares that social media is having in terms of internet behaviourand so on, it’s really not coming at the expense of Google,” Rogoff added. “It’s coming at the expense of Yahoo , AOL , and so on… but really Google is continuing to hold its own, which I think is really positive.”